Relics of a forgotten past

The blue age has since long pasted by; a time when the world was filled by enormous ocean and people lived on the many small island that lay scattered like dots in the vast blueness. But the Sun’s rays were strong and the oceans tried to escape as the water levels receded and slowly the small islands grew bigger. Eventually it was talk about the blue age being lost and the green age arising as green fields stretched past the horizons on islands that now had grown into each other to form continents. Seas of leafs waving in the fresh winds, and there is plenty of food and water for everyone. as the Sun’s rays lost their strength the oceans stopped shrinking and the world prospered and people lived in happiness and consent.

But some people began abusing the wealth of resource in order to live on others, and soon greed and jealousy was born. People started to divide into groups that later grew into towns and cities. In these cities the lust for riches and prosperity grew strong, which caused unrest between neighboring settlements, and so born was anger and violence. From the growing unrest people began to fear that the Sun would regain it’s strength and the oceans would recede again until water was no more. At this point, three Princes from the primordial realms, ancient and more powerful than any man or being. They fed the fear of people and blamed the Sun Goddess for the receding oceans and people began to support their cause.

The Princes told people that they need to capture the Goddess and harness her power to return the oceans for another blue age. To do this they lend some of their power to mankind so that they together capture the Goddess, and the most powerful of them became known as the Princes’ champions. A great battle emerged and the Sun Goddess was captured and locked away far away from civilization in preparations of the ritual. But in her captivity, she managed to persuade a number of the Princes’ champions, who released her and turned against their former masters. Thus began the Sorcerer Wars which divided the people and at the end of it the world would never be the same.

At this time my story begins, in the midst of a gruesome war were there is no winner and no by-standers as everyone is affected by the war that spreads like a plague across the lands. A land once so beautiful and thriving, now defiled by death and suffering with once so big and beautiful lush meadows spotted forever by patches of dry and barren wastelands, was dying. The battle closes on to all of the major cities in the lands, misery and destruction follows.

On the great walls around the city Balic stands a peculiar man. On his right, mountains cover the screams and fires of war that burn the lands beyond them, and to his left stretches a field of grass, once bright green, full of life, now slowly fading into a bright brown like the sands of the desert. Far behind him, behind the other side of the city, he can hear the waves crashing against the city walls and carrying a salty breeze that fills his lungs. The gentle sounds of birds around the sea and forests intermix with the disharmonies from weapons meeting shields and flesh. A world in chaos, a world in distress, taken here by deceit and dishonesty. This man has already chosen his side of the war, actually, you could say that he was born into it.

He is the spiritual leader of the city Balic, located on the souther coastline of Athas, a city distinguished by its tradition of equality, where any man has a say and no rules dictates what a man should or should not discuss in public. For a long time he has ruled his order with an iron fist adorned with logic, resolve and understanding, but with the tendrils of war clinging on the city walls he has an important task at hand. During his conquest in the earlier times of the green age Aelborn, the Dictator of Balic, found an old relic that he claimed to come from the beginning of mankind, a holy of great powers but which no one of the order was able to harness. The relic was kept in a golden chest, adorned by a crude emblem which depict a clutter of arms and legs that seems to belong to the same body. Three heads sit there, one laughing, one crying and the third and last with an evil grin. Then you suddenly notice how the crying head is also grinning at the same time, but you were sure that grin wasn’t there before.

Afraid the relic would fall into the wrong hands in the chaos of war a scheme was set in motion to transport it far away, and keep it safe. The man had pondered whom to trust which such a important but delicate mission, but as he stood on the wall, he was resolved that he had made the correct choice. Seven men and women have been summoned and in a few minutes he will meet them in one of the castle’s meeting rooms, joined by the Dictator’s closest man and friend, Baelum. He went back inside as a light rain started pouring, making his cloak wet. In the corridor he meets Baelum, and both men continue along the path towards the meeting room in silence.